Quick Facts
Biography
Anthony Colin Gerald Andrews (born 12 January 1948) is an English actor best known for his role as Lord Sebastian Flyte in the 1981 ITV miniseries Brideshead Revisited (1981). He is also known for playing the lead roles in Ivanhoe, Operation Daybreak, Danger UXB and The Scarlet Pimpernel, and for portraying Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in The King's Speech (2010). For his performance in Brideshead Revisited Andrews won Golden Globe and BAFTA TV Awards, and was nominated for an Emmy.
Life and career
Andrews was born in London, the son of Geraldine Agnes (née Cooper), a dancer, and Stanley Thomas Andrews, an arranger and conductor for the BBC. He grew up in North Finchley London. At the age of eight he took dancing lessons, making his stage debut as the White Rabbit in a stage adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
After a series of jobs that included catering, farming and journalism, he secured a position at the Chichester Theatre where he worked as an assistant stage manager and later as a stand-in producer. He auditioned in 1968 for a production of Alan Bennett's new play, Forty Years On, which featured John Gielgud as the headmaster of a British public school during the First World War period. Andrews was cast as Skinner, one of twenty schoolboys. In 1974 he played Lord Robert, Marquis of Stockbridge in the TV series Upstairs, Downstairs. In 1975 he had a leading role in the Spanish film Las adolescentes (The Adolescents), opposite Koo Stark.
In June 1979 he was cast in the role of Bodie in the ITV series The Professionals. However, after three days of filming, the creator and producer Brian Clemens felt that the chemistry between Andrews and Martin Shaw (Doyle) did not work and that "the pair did not have the required undercurrent of menace to carry off the concept". Lewis Collins replaced Andrews in the part. Following that, in 1979, Andrews was the main star of the ITV television series Danger UXB, in which he played a British bomb disposal officer in the London Blitz. The series first aired in the United Kingdom in 1979 on the ITV network.
His subsequent work includes the leading role of Lord Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited. In 1982, he won a Golden Globe and BAFTA TV Award for his performance and was nominated for an Emmy Award. In the United States, Andrews is best known for his portrayal of the titular character in Ivanhoe as well as that of Sir Percy Blakeney in the 1982 film The Scarlet Pimpernel.
He played Professor Higgins in a stage version of My Fair Lady (2001), and Count Fosco in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White.
He was the narrator for a 21st anniversary BBC Radio 2 special broadcast of Cameron Mackintosh's musical Les Misérables, sung by the then West End cast at the Mermaid Theatre in London on Sunday 8 October 2006. Andrews appeared as Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in the 2010 film The King's Speech, for which he won a SAG Award along with Helena Bonham Carter, Jennifer Ehle, Colin Firth, Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi, Guy Pearce, Geoffrey Rush and Timothy Spall.
Andrews survived a case of water intoxication in 2003. The condition, also known as hyponatraemia ("low blood sodium"), occurs when sodium ions in the body are diluted so far that nerves are unable to function properly. The condition has symptoms similar to those of dehydration, such as headaches, nausea and cramps. Whilst performing as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, Andrews would consume up to eight litres of water a day. He lost consciousness and spent three days in intensive care.
He married Georgina Simpson of the Simpsons of Piccadilly department store family. They have three children – Joshua who is a theatre producer, Jessica is a film producer and artist and lastly Amy-Samantha has a wedding business.She is also a god-daughter of Princess Anne, The Princess Royal.
Selected filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | A Day Out | Brother | |
| 1974 | Percy's Progress | Catchpole | |
| 1974 | Take Me High | Hugo Flaxman | |
| 1975 | The Adolescents | Jimmy | |
| 1975 | Operation Daybreak | Jozef Gabcik | |
| 1981 | Mistress of Paradise | Buckley | |
| 1982 | Ivanhoe | Wilfred of Ivanhoe | TV movie |
| 1982 | The Scarlet Pimpernel | Sir Percy Blakeney | |
| 1983 | Sparkling Cyanide | Tony Browne | |
| 1984 | Under the Volcano | Hugh Firmin | |
| 1985 | The Holcroft Covenant | Johann von Tiebolt / Jonathan Tennyson | |
| 1987 | The Lighthorsemen | Maj. Richard Meinertzhagen | |
| 1987 | The Second Victory | Maj. Hanlon | |
| 1988 | Bluegrass | Michael Fitzgerald | |
| 1988 | Hanna's War | McCormack | |
| 1990 | Hands of a Murderer | Professor Moriarty | |
| 1991 | Lost in Siberia | Andrei Miller | |
| 1995 | Haunted | Robert Mariell | |
| 1997 | Mothertime | Robin | |
| 2000 | David Copperfield | Edward Murdstone | |
| 2010 | The King's Speech | Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin | Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture |
| 2019 | The Professor and the Madman | Benjamin Jowett |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | The Wednesday Play | Harry | |
| 1972 | Dixon of Dock Green | Paul Richards | |
| 1972 | Doomwatch | Carlos | |
| 1972 | Follyfoot | Lord Beck | |
| 1972 | A War of Children | Reg Hogg | American (CBS) TV film set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles |
| 1972 | Thirty-Minute Theatre | Michael Warren / Vernon Warren | Episode "The Judge's Wife" |
| 1974 | The Fortunes of Nigel | Sir Nigel Olifaunt | |
| 1974 | QB VII | Stephen Kelno | |
| 1974 | The Pallisers | Lord Silverbridge | |
| 1974 | David Copperfield | James Steerforth | |
| 1975 | Upstairs, Downstairs | Lord Robert Stockbridge / The Marquis of Stockbridge | |
| 1976 | The Duchess of Duke Street | Marcus Carrington | |
| 1976–1977 | Play of the Month | Various characters | In "French Without Tears", "London Assurance", and "The Country Wife" |
| 1977 | Wings | Lt. Walker | |
| 1977 | ITV Sunday Night Drama | Harry | Episode "A Superstition" |
| 1978 | Romeo and Juliet | Mercutio | BBC Television Shakespeare |
| 1979 | Danger UXB | Brian Ash | |
| 1981 | The Love Boat | Tony Selkirk | |
| 1981 | Brideshead Revisited | Lord Sebastian Flyte | British Academy Television Award for Best Actor Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie |
| 1984 | Play for Today | John Loomis | Episode "Z for Zachariah" |
| 1985 | A.D. | Nero | |
| 1988 | American Playhouse | Johnnie Aysgarth | Episode "Suspicion" |
| 1988 | The Woman He Loved | King Edward VIII | |
| 1989 | A Fine Romance | Michael Trent | |
| 1989 | Columbo: Columbo Goes to the Guillotine | Elliot Blake | |
| 1989 | Nightmare Classics | Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde | Episode "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" |
| 1992 | Jewels | William Whitfield | |
| 1992 | Screen Two | Christopher Edwardes | |
| 1996 | The Ruth Rendell Mysteries | Luke Crossland | |
| 1996 | Tales from the Crypt | Jonathan | Episode "About Face" |
| 2001 | Love in a Cold Climate | Boy | |
| 2003 | Cambridge Spies | King George VI | |
| 2004 | Rosemary & Thyme | Richard Oakley | Episode "The Invisible Worm" |
| 2006 | Marple: By the Pricking of My Thumbs | Tommy Beresford | |
| 2012 | Birdsong | Colonel Barclay | |
| 2015 | The Syndicate | Lord Hazelwood |
Producer
- Lost in Siberia (1991)
- Haunted (1995)
Theatrical roles
- Count Fosco in The Woman in White.
- Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.
- Pastor Manders in Ghosts.
- Seasons with The New Shakespeare Company and Chichester Festival Theatre.
- W. Somerset Maugham's The Letter at Wyndham's Theatre, London (2007).
- Oscar in premiere of Bully Boy at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton (2011).
- Coming In To Land at the National Theatre, London (1987).